Tutorial:Vegas Pro - Intermediate
This tutorial will go beyond the bare basics to get a standard parody published as prescribed in the Basics tutorial. This tutorial consists of assorted intermediate-level topics. Muffled sound effect You've probably heard this in action - sound effects that make it as if a music is played in the next room, or Hitler gets annoyed by the music playing in the Party Scene. It can be tricky to execute; even the best of Untergangers made mistakes in simulating this effect (too much of an echo, etc). Fret not - here I will show you three Vegas Audio FX plugins that will pull this effect off faster than you can say "epicly" and better than Tukhachevsky would describe it. #'Select the audio event, media or track.' If you got a bunch of audio events to apply this effect to, it's better to group them together in a track and apply the FX to the track. #Open up the Audio Event FX dialog for the aforementioned object (event, media or track). Look for the telltale FX icon (green) and click on it. Alternately, for audio events, you can right-click on it, and a context menu with "Audio Event FX" will be shown. #The "Audio Event FX" dialog would appear. Depending on which type of object you're trying to apply the FX to, a "Plug-In Chooser" dialog should automatically appear. If it doesn't, look for the green FX icon again in the "Audio Event FX" (top right-hand side corner) and click it. #In the "Plug-In Chooser" dialog, select the following plugins (or an equivalent) by double-clicking them IN ORDER: ##'Reverb' ##'Equalization' ##'Resonant Filter' #Click OK on the "Plug-In Chooser" dialog. The three plugins should now appear in your "Audio Event FX" dialog. #Set the plugins to these presets (refer to gallery images at the bottom of this section): ##Reverb - Small metal room ##Equalization - Bass boost ##Resonant Filter - Muffler #The FX should be done! Now play your project and listen to the epic effect! Vegas muffled effect 1.png|Reverb Vegas muffled effect 2.png|Equalization Vegas muffled effect 3.png|Resonant Filter Frame rates The frame rate of your project (and thus your final render) is actually much more important than you think. Before anything is even placed into the project timeline, you must determine such things as the frame rate of your sources and whether you're doing any FX like head pasting or rotoscoping, as conflicting source, project and render frame rates would degrade not just the scene ( inbetweening) but more importantly your FX (inbetweening will wreck your pasted heads' alignments). Vegas lets you control the frame rate of many stuff - from your project and the preview down to the final render. There are unfortunately also lots of ways to screw up the frame rate - especially during the final render. frame rate problems usually arises as a result of using many clips with different frame rates. Here's three important points to keep in mind about frame rates in Vegas: #Checking the frame rate of all your source videos #Adjusting the frame rate of your project to best match your source video usage #Matching the final render frame rate to the project frame rate #NOT allowing the source video to 'adjust' (fuck up) the frame rate of your rendered video. Each of these will be discussed below. ;Checking the frame rate of all your source videos #In the "Project Media", right-click on each video and choose "Properties..." #Take note of the "Timecode". That is the frame rate of the source video. ;Adjusting frame rate of project Normally the default project frame rate would do just fine, but adjusting the frame rate to the source videos would generally produce better results and optimize rendering. Note that the best time to do this is before anything is placed in the editing tracks. Changing the project frame rate when most of the clips have already been laid out will introduce other complications. #Open the project properties #Match the frame rate of your project to the one of the source video #Also, make sure that "Field order" is set to "progressive" The source video that will determine the project frame rate would be the one to be used the most (e.g. the "Hitler Plans Full Scene.wmv" for a Hitler plans parody). If many clips from various sources are used / planned for use (e.g. from Downfall, various other movies and also Internet footages) choose the one with the highest frame rate (usually in 29.997 NTSC) ;Matching frame rate of final render to project Make sure to match the render frame rate to the project frame rate adjusted earlier. Templates that match your project settings are marked with an equal sign ("=") icon. If the template has the desired video size but not the frame rate, click on "Customize Template..." button and pick the desired frame rate from the drop-down box. ;NOT allowing the source video to 'adjust' (fuck up) the final render frame rate Vegas Pro had one ill-conceived default setting that let the source videos 'adjust' the frame rate of your final render. As a result, your final video could have its frame rate reduced to the likes of 14 frames per second (fps) if source clips of various frame rates are used in the project. You need to do the following on the "Render" dialog box: #Pick the desired template #Click on the "Customize template..." button #'UNCHECK' the "Allow source to adjust frame rate" checkbox Vegas media contextmenu properties.png|The context menu on a source video Vegas toolbar project properties.png|The project properties button on the toolbar Vegas project properties.png|Setting up project properties. Common values highlighted in green. Mandatory values highlighted in red. Change speed There are several ways to change the speed of your timeline clips. Event stretching The easiest is to ctrl+drag the ends of your clip. Clips with altered speed (stretched or compressed) is denoted by a "spring" drawn on the background of the clip. The spring compression/tension intuitively visualizes if the event speed is stretched/compressed, and by how much. Changing speed in this way doesn't change the pitch of the audio. To reverse a clip right-click on one and select "Reverse". Reversed clips are denoted with a left-pointing arrow on the clips' left edge. Track envelopes The second method is to use the "track envelope" feature. In Vegas, this means you can apply an effect across the whole track, with the effect parameter value shown as a line on the track. You can change the parameter values at specific points in time by adding control points on the line. The specific track envelope for changing clip speed is "Velocity". To add one, select a track so that it becomes active. Go to Tools>Envelopes>Velocity. Adding control points to the velocity line changes the speed of the video, as well as the video's audio. This envelope cannot be applied to audio tracks. Event FX The third method is through the clips' Event FX. Using this gives you more control of the parameters applied, but it may not allow you to animate the event (have parameters change over time). Use this method if you want to change the pitch, for example, but keep the tempo. Category:Parody Making